Born: As Richard Timothy Smith on March 25th, 1942 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England.

In Rocky Horror circles, Richard "Ritz" O'Brien is simply... the creator. He wrote the book, music, and lyrics for the Rocky Horror Show musical in 1973, and originated the role of Riff Raff in its original London production. The play's 1975 film adaptation, The Rocky Horror Picture Show (in which he again played Riff Raff), spawned the massive cult following that is the reason most of us are here. Outside of Rocky Horror he's known for his other stage and film work while in the U.K. he's also widely recognized as "Reckless Rick", host of the wildly popular early 90s BBC game show The Crystal Maze.

Richard's family emigrated from England to New Zealand in 1951, when his father (an accountant at the time) decided to become a sheep farmer. In 1964 he moved back to England to pursue a (obviously successful) career in entertainment. Richard has been married (and divorced) twice, to TransylvanianKimi Wong and later Jane Moss. However he dislikes sexual labels and refuses to refer to himself as straight, gay, or bi. At a 2007 charity auction, he declared that "I have slept with 300 women, 30 or 40 men and around 12 transsexuals".